Taizhou living

[K Lance]

Do they have central heating in Taizhou? Are there opportunities to teach English there?

KL

[afd]

i have never lived in taizhou but presumaly just like in other cities, you can look for places that are more geared towards expats and some of them probably got central heating - but ppl normally don't use them...

[jwhahn]

In my opinion, mostly there is no central heating system for most student dorms or aparments. But for hetols, yes.

There are several higher learning institutes stationed inTazhou: Taizhou Teacher's College, Jiangsu Veterinary School, Taishou campus of Nanjing Univeristyof Science and Technology, Taizhou campus of Nanjing normal University, Taizhou Campus of China Radio/Television University. I guess there will be some positions for English teaching but you have to contact individual school.

Good Luck!

[edkrutast]

In my opinion, mostly there is no central heating system for most student dorms or aparments. But for hetols, yes.

There are several higher learning institutes stationed inTazhou: Taizhou Teacher's College, Jiangsu Veterinary School, Taishou campus of Nanjing Univeristyof Science and Technology, Taizhou campus of Nanjing normal University, Taizhou Campus of China Radio/Television University. I guess there will be some positions for English teaching but you have to contact individual school.

Good Luck!

we had our central heating from the rented apartment when we were in Wuxi 2006.

[nickistin]

Seems the city has lots of financial funding available, you can see from its road designs and renovations, city buildings, brand new trainstation, lots of new stuff. On its wide city roads, the population seems ralitively small. expat community is small as well.

[RW Emerson]

I lived in Taizhou for two years. I stayed because I needed to build teaching credentials. The city is so desperate for foreign teachers that it will hire almost anyone. Nanjing Normal and the Polytechnic colleges are there are is the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary College. All offer sub-standard teacher housing (as of 2009).

I did not enjoy my stay in Taizhou at all, though there are about 40 westerners living there, most of whom are European and speak no English. They work for manufacturers.There is an area where there are very expensive restaurants and night clubs now, but for the most part, the city is impoverished and trash pickers abound. It is not at all a good place for a foreign teacher. The cost of living is outrageously high, considering the fact that there is really nothing there except for manufacturing plants on the edge of the city.The disparity between the rich factory engineers and the common folk is obvious. On the streets, there are Audis, Mercedes, Buicks, and then there are ebikes.

My college had two campuses, and I had to ride a long way to and from each campus. My school did not want foreign teachers to work on the main campus for some reason. Teachers quit all of the schools at short notice because of the bad living conditions and because of the crime in the city.

I visited a friend there this past summer. There was and still is a lot of construction going on in Taizhou. A lot of construction has also stopped. In one corner of the city, construction on a mall has stopped. It is a HUGE crater now. There are many new apartments buildings that were never occupied. As a result, there are are a lot of transients living in the city and there are many beggars. Taizhou after dark is a bit scary in some places, especially around the "night clubs".

The city has little to recommend it. It is not pretty, and there is little of historical value to make it a tourist attraction.

If you want to teach, go somewhere else. It is generally agreed that the schools are not good employers.

[milkweed]

An outfit called "Teach in Jiangsu" are almost constantly advertising for teachers across all types of schools for Taizhou and various other locations in Jiangsu, on eslteachersboard.com. I'm guessing this is an indicator of the high turnover of teachers that must be occurring due to the poor accomodation and general living conditions that the previous poster clearly described. Can anyone else verify and/or describe their experiences working for schools in this province?

[Jayne R]

I visited a friend who worked for the Jiangsu Animal Husbandry and Veterinary college in Taizhou. When he returned from summer vacation, he found that his whole apartment was covered with mildew. The air conditioning was broken most of the time. The school couldn't afford to fix it.

There isn't a whole lot to do in the city. It seems that most of the foreign teachers are old middle aged types. I wouldn't want to work there. Nanjing isn't that far away from Taizhou, but it's a much better city to live in.

[G.E. Smith]

There is almost nothing to recommend Taizhou to any foreigner OR local. I lived there for two years and taught at one of the colleges. There are lots of new cars everywhere, construction noise, and pollution. It is a growing city, but I can see no reason for anyone to want to visit the place or to work there unless he is an engineer and works for one of the manufacturing plants. Yeah, sure, Hu Jintao went to school there. Big Whoopie.

Teaching? Forget it. Living quarters for most of the teachers at most of the schools I visited were very bad. Shopping in Taizhou is a cr@pshoot. If you aren't ripped off by a cashier you're lucky. I shopped at all of grocery stores, and I began to look at expiration dates on the packaged foods that had expiration dates. MOST of what I had been buying was 4-13 months past its expiration date.

The locals aren't terribly friendly. It is the least friendly Chinese city I've lived in or visited. It's the ONLY place in China where someone tried to rob me.

[Alonzo]

I am missing two fingers and I have a glass eye. I have a hi school education and I write good. I am 28 years old from California. Think I maybe can get a job teaching English or maybe yoga or something useful like that? In Taizhou?